Darline Graham is running to keep the U.S. Senate seat she was appointed to after her brother, Lindsey Graham, died in July. Like him, she talks tough on China.

"We need to manufacture more here, produce our own energy, secure our supply chains, and stop depending on Communist China for things America can make ourselves," she said in an August interview with the Washington Reporter.

Her own household is a different story. Her husband, Larry Nordone, has management roles at two companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing, The Washington Post reported on October 10, citing company filings and shipping data.

Two companies, one Columbia address

Graham's spokeswoman, Taylor Reidy, told the Post that Nordone is director of customer service at two companies that share a headquarters address in Columbia, South Carolina:

• Birchwood Trading, which sells John Deere-related gift products and other items.
• Cosmox North America, a licensed federal firearms importer that sells lethal and nonlethal weapons.

In August, The New Yorker — citing the Graham campaign — described Nordone as the chief operating officer of both companies. Now the campaign says "director of customer service" is more accurate, because these are small businesses where people wear many hats.

Birchwood: 97% of its containers appear to come from China

ImportGenius, a firm that tracks trade data, told the Post that more than 97 percent of the shipping containers Birchwood Trading has imported since 2013 appear to be of Chinese origin. (The Post notes it's unclear how much of Birchwood's business comes in by sea.)

That is the company Graham lists as her husband's source of income on her Senate financial disclosure.

Cosmox: toy guns from a Chinese maker that bragged about its military ties

Cosmox North America's top trading partner, according to ImportGenius, is Zhongzhou Machinery Works — ZZM — a manufacturer in China's Henan province. ZZM was the supplier on 16 of Cosmox's 28 shipment records between February 2025 and September 2026. Cosmox imports its line of gel blaster toy guns from it.

Cosmox's parent company told the Post its shareholders "obtained effective control of ZZM through a private commercial transaction" in 2021.

Until very recently, ZZM's own website described it as a "certified defense contractor" with "wartime-ready capacities" and "military-grade" production standards. It listed "service pistols, modular grenade launchers [and] 7.62mm infantry weapons" among its expertise. Its "partners and clients" page named Norinco, a major state-owned Chinese military weapons supplier, and Poly Technologies, an arms trader founded by China's People's Liberation Army.

Then the Post started asking questions.

ZZM and Cosmox's parent company both took their websites down for "maintenance." When ZZM's site came back days later, the "military-grade" language was gone, and so were Norinco and Poly Technologies. A spokeswoman said the information was out of date, that ZZM no longer does business with those companies, and that it does not supply lethal weapons to Cosmox.

A disclosure that leaves one company out

Graham's Senate financial disclosure, filed in August, lists only Birchwood Trading as a source of her husband's income. A South Carolina disclosure she filed in 2024, when she served on a state board, also left out Cosmox North America.

Reidy said the Senate form is accurate because Birchwood pays Nordone as an employee. She would not say whether Birchwood also pays him for his work at Cosmox. She said he has no "ownership or equity stake" in either company, and sent questions about his work and pay to Birchwood's CEO, Louie Harrison — who is also listed in state filings as manager of Cosmox. Harrison didn't respond.

The question she didn't answer

The Post asked whether Graham sees a conflict between promising to crack down on China and her husband's jobs at companies that depend on it. Her spokeswoman didn't answer that directly. Instead she said Graham "supports holding China accountable on multiple fronts" and "will continue to work with President Trump to make China play by the rules."

Graham's China talk hasn't been tested much. At the August Republican debate, asked whether Taiwan is a U.S. national security issue, she said: "I'm not that informed on national security." We wrote about that answer here.

In summary

Darline Graham tells South Carolina voters America must "stop depending on Communist China." Her husband, Larry Nordone, holds management roles at two Columbia companies: Birchwood Trading, whose shipping containers appear to be more than 97% Chinese-origin, and Cosmox North America, whose top supplier is a Chinese manufacturer controlled by its parent company's shareholders — one that advertised ties to China's state weapons makers until The Washington Post asked. Graham's Senate disclosure lists only Birchwood, and her campaign wouldn't say whether she sees a conflict.

Source

• Darline Graham opposes Chinese manufacturing. Her husband's job relies on it. — The Washington Post